Re: [Leica] Re: Prints from slides

[Mark <mark@steinberg.net>]

Dan Cardish wrote:
> 
> At 02:05 PM 06-06-98 -0700, m wrote:
> >Dan Cardish wrote:
> >>
> >> At 12:55 PM 06-06-98 -0700, you wrote:
> >
> >8-bits per color is not enough to do a reasonable scan. 10-bits per color
> >is close to being OK. 12-bits is much better, yet even at this depth you
> >are only achieving a color range akin to 400ASA film (in my experience).
> >
> Most personal computer monitors are only capable of displaying 8 bits per
> colour, 

is that a limitation of the phosphours in the monitor ?

otherwise the color depth of your screen is dependent on the amount
of video memory you have in yout computer's video subsystem ? by
8-bits you are "Millions" (the typical computer definition of
16,777,216) and beyond that you go to "True Color". am i mistaken ? 

> and most colour printers such as my Epson Photo are also only
> capable of printing 8 bits per colour (24 bits).  

which got me interested enough to look through the documentation for
mine ! :-)...where did you find this information ?

whatever, the ability of an inkjet printer to resolve even 8 bits
per color, and thereby offering the 16 millions variations possible,
seems a little farfetched....it prints with only 6 colors after all,
obviously at a certain point this becomes an analog process but at
that point temperature, realtive humidity, paper age, ink viscosity,
etc, must all play a part too. no ?

> Photoshop 5 (and to a
> lesser extent Photoshop 4) can read 16 bit TIF files from those scanners
> that are able to create such a beast, but usually, these files are tweaked
> and then written down to the more usual 24 bit version.   Just because a
> scanner can read 30, 32 or more bits, doesn't mean that you end up with an
> image file with more than 24 bits, and doesn't mean that you need more than
> 24 bits in the final output file.

that's very interesting, and checking in the ls-1000 documentation i see that
it's output is indeed 8-bits per color. it's a/d unit is 12-bits per color
and it was comparing it's scanning ability with it's "lowly" brother scanner,
which works at only 10-bits per color (and is extremely frustrating to use), 
that i formed my error. i had mistakenly mapped it's scanning resolution 
straight to it's output resolution.

whatever, i stand corrected. i've yet to create a 10M scan that prints to
8X10 though ! unless it's been compressed....

m

ps. sorry for the lack of leica content....